Physical Address
Indirizzo: Via Mario Greco 60, Buttigliera Alta, 10090, Torino, Italy
Anything but a settled matter for the umbrella organization of African football. On the contrary, it is a real burden that it must still drag around for a long time since the CAF, constantly caught up by the old demons of swindling, scandals and dirty tricks, is lacking arguments and is gaining time by referring the matter to the CAS in Lausanne. Without the assurance of emerging unscathed from this affair where it is playing for a particularly damaged credibility.
A case, to say the least, that constantly resurfaces. With its share of information or fake news in the absence of a clear decision to close a heavy file to be carried by the managers of a CAF adrift. Who no longer knows which saint to turn to. Or yes, to the all-powerful saint TAS taking up residence in the very calm and beautiful Swiss city of Lausanne and from whose walls nothing filters out.
Which suits our august CAF, which opts for another session of interminable extra time, making vague any reading or prediction regarding this Algerian-Moroccan match loaded with tension. And which does not want to end.
While waiting for news to turn a sensitive page of the tumultuous relations between the two neighbors that the Web is taking charge of to make its cabbage fat, is it not that, and against all expectations, the secretary general of CAF, Verdon Mosengo-Omba, brings this thorny problem back to the forefront by means of an interview granted to the BBC website where he will speak pell-mell, in a way of clouding the issue, of certain burning issues (without of course going into the depths of things) agitating the football sphere on the continent.
For example, “the progress made by the confederation in its battle to eliminate the debts accumulated in recent years. The cases of corruption which occasionally shake the African body” before, inevitably, the question of the famous USMA-RS Berkane semi-final and this affair of the falsified card which drags on.
The Soustara club, unfairly eliminated and waiting to be reinstated, hopes at the very least for an apology and compensation for the wrongs suffered, particularly due to the flagrant bias of a Confederation which has openly decided to flout its own regulations and go against those of FIFA.
The TAS is a convenient excuse!
To return to this petty episode reflecting the worst image of African football authorities would only be tedious, the refrain of the Moroccan Football Federation couple, led by the project manager Lekjaâ and the CAF of Motsepe working for the latter, ending up no longer convincing anyone.
Since the case ended up, fatally, in the corridors of the Court of Arbitration for Sport on May 2, rarely has the CAF Interclub Commission, which validated the use of RS Berkane jerseys in the context of the 2023/24 CAF Cup, been so badly mistreated.
What’s next? Mum’s the word, even though the competition went to its conclusion, with Zamalek, with the help of fate, taking charge, in the final, of doing justice to USMA by winning the trophy against Berkane.
If we are still waiting for the verdict, and the Red and Blacks have not seen anything coming from the Disciplinary Commission and they will indeed be part of the 24-25 edition of the CAF with, the cherry on the cake, a dispensation from the first preliminary round, the CAF has opted for caution by sending the ball back to the CAS court, the same Mosemgo-Omba confirming that nothing will be done without referring to international laws.
Not before the CAS decides what to do next in this Lekjaâ-style shambles. “We are waiting for the CAS to decide and for the decision to guide us on how to improve our regulations,” he will declare in substance. “Good time!